Protecting an Ebook from Piracy?

[Andrew Michaels]

I'm almost finished writing an ebook that I want to sell on my website. The problem I'm worried about is piracy. I understand selling through amazon will protect it, but then I lose most of my profits.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to do this? Thanks.

[The Rock]

Protection from piracy is impossible. Selling through Amazon will not protect any book/ebook.

[joyfulgrowth]

How about focusing on becoming the expert for your topic rather than on making money money? That way, it doesn't matter if somebody copies it.

[David Hooper]

As the author of several books, I can tell you firsthand that the biggest problem you're going to have is creating something that people would actually want to pirate, not piracy itself.

[julien]

I agreed with David Hooper ... if you eventually get pirated, that'll mean you've been successful ...

[Andrew Michaels]

Just to clarify, I mean pirate in the sense of someone buying a copy and then sending it out to all their friends. I don't mean piracy in the sense of some other author taking my ideas and repackaging them.

Originally Posted by joyfulgrowth

How about focusing on becoming the expert for your topic rather than on making money money? That way, it doesn't matter if somebody copies it.

[hawkal]

I also agree with what David Hooper has said. Also there really is no way around piracy because there are people out there who see breaking any new system as a challenge and not because they want to pirate it.

I believe that the best thing you could do and I have seen it done in multiple places would be to create a membership website that has all of the information on web pages in the membership area so that people have to login and read the information on your website but put it in a way that clearly shows a natural progression to your content. I don't like membership sites that insist on dividing everything into articles because then the content loses all sense of direction.

Also I would have a system setup so that it would check their ip and location so that for example if an account is being shared by people from different countries or an irregular amount of unique ip addresses you know that someone has probably shared their login information.

[MyEyeIsOpen]

Trying to stop it technologically is a fool's errand. You might slow some people down, but not without huge hassle and expense. It's just not worth it. I just put a personal note at the beginning of my stuff, and make sure my web address is on every page so I can make the best of it when it happens.

Don't focus on this -- the people who are going to pirate your book probably wouldn't have bought it anyway. Just focus on creating the content and marketing it.

[joyfulgrowth]

Originally Posted by Andrew Michaels

Just to clarify, I mean pirate in the sense of someone buying a copy and then sending it out to all their friends. I don't mean piracy in the sense of some other author taking my ideas and repackaging them.

Ok, thanks.

Can you think of situations where you use something without paying for it, and others where you choose not to? What is making the difference of you?

As for me, I enjoy when authors add a positive request that helps me also consider their needs (I rarely see that, though. I don't mean those creepy blame statements telling to tell people that it is unfair or unspiritual to make copies...).

I also agree that most people to whom a copy is being sent usually wouldn't buy it. So if somebody sends it to dozens of friends, he is probably doing you a huge favor spreading your work faster than your own marketing activities ever could.

You could also offer a teaser for free (like a sample chapter). If people got enthusiastic, they could send it around, and you could actually use the mechanism in your favor and get more orders.

[TheMoneyManLeo]

Yes, if you achieve any measure of success it WILL happen.

The funniest example of it happening to me was the lady who asked for a refund within an hour of buying and then posted the PDF for sale on ebay saying how good it was.

Using google I was able to find out lots about her including her wedding date and the church she attended.

It was really tempting to send a message to her priest BUT I didn't

Instead I contacted eBay and they had me fill out a form and it was removed. Hope she lost her account!

[3afash]

I have the same problem in mind as well. I've been thinking about ways to protect it especially that my ebook will be targeting a market of young people who are much more likely to download the ebook off a Torrent tracker or a peer network. I agree that people who do this would not have bought the product in the first place but when it's easy to download the product for free a lot of people won't buy it and just download it. I though of the membership idea but for some reason I think an ebook would be more appealing and accessible. The only thing I could come up with is to write a warning on the first page of the ebook and state that each ebook copy has a unique serial number and if a copy spreads its buyer will be banned from receiving my newsletter or something to that degree...

[joyfulgrowth]

3afash, are you so scared that you won't make enough money that you have to threaten your readers? Do you really want fear of punishment to be their motivation for not sharing it?

[3afash]

Originally Posted by joyfulgrowth

3afash, are you so scared that you won't make enough money that you have to threaten your readers? Do you really want fear of punishment to be their motivation for not sharing it?

lol that sounded kinda harsh...

it's not like that but I'm writing an ebook in my native language and the market that I'm targeting almost never pays for stuff online and it's very common for people to download things off of forums or sharing networks illegally. Of course a few will buy it but I think there's nothing wrong with thinking about a way to not make it so easy for people to get for free. Plus I think sharing is different than posting the ebook on a public forum for everyone to download.

[joyfulgrowth]

Ok.

Good luck if your target market "almost never pays for stuff online"!

[Piercetheveil]

Andrew

Protect the basics (secure url download). Outside of that do not waste energy on the rest. I do not know of one produce that is digital that I can not get my hands on for free.

The vast majority will still pay if it is a quality product (heck if it is not quality and has great marketing it will still sell).

Few people need to worry about the loss side and need more focus on the sell side.

[Trezker]

There's only one way to minimize piracy. Give your customers what they want, directly.

Set up a site where people can download pdf for free and donate whatever they think you're worth quickly and easily. Add a link to places that sell the physical version or other formats of the book.

[floslib]

Unfortunately, you can't stop piracy. It really is just too easy for people to find what they want for free because someone has copied it, cracked it, or whatever was necessary, then made it available for free online. What you need is a business model that isn't threatened by piracy. Perhaps you can handle a certain percentage of work being pirated, or perhaps you can find a way to turn it to your advantage if your ebook ends of widely pirated instead of purchased.

The best thing you can do is find a way to offer a better product than the pirates can offer. If you can do that, people will buy your product. The trick is to find a way to add value that isn't easily duplicated.

Of course, you could also go the route Trezker recommends and distribute your work for free, then ask people to donate to you what they think it's worth to them.

However, spending loads of money on anti-piracy measures is not the winning move. The video game, music, and movie industries have been trying different approaches to this idea for a long time, and every option they've come up with has failed to stop their products from being pirated. Which means that in the end, they've sunk tons of money into anti-piracy measures and not seen any real return on it.

[The Rock]

Originally Posted by Trezker

There's only one way to minimize piracy. Give your customers what they want, directly.

Set up a site where people can download pdf for free and donate whatever they think you're worth quickly and easily. Add a link to places that sell the physical version or other formats of the book.

That does not work. When Steve used to have a donate button, the donations amounted to chump change. He posted about this in some forum post or some blog post, can't remember.

You'll make way more money by selling a product, even with piracy taken into account, than you will giving it away for free and asking for a donation in return.

The simple solution is ignore piracy and just send take down notices if you ever find your ebook getting shared on file networks such as RapidShare, MediaFire or getting sold on sites like eBay or other obvious places. Don't bother sending the notices to torrent sites.

[Starbuck]

Originally Posted by Andrew Michaels

I'm almost finished writing an ebook that I want to sell on my website. The problem I'm worried about is piracy. I understand selling through amazon will protect it, but then I lose most of my profits.

Anyone have any thoughts on how to do this? Thanks.

Think of it as an advertisement for a Print On Demand/self-published book and give it away for free! Cory Doctorow does that, for example, and his sales ratio free ebook/sold POD-book is approximately 300K vs. 30K IIRC. You can always charge more for a real book than an e-book, so there won't necessarily be a 'net loss'. Include some extra features in the POD-book to make it extra attractive.

Read more about Cory here, if you like:

Cory Doctorow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[rocksupreme]

Focus on writing something worth the trouble and marketing it well enough that people know who you are. If you are ever in a position such that your work is widely pirated, you'll also be selling plenty to people with higher morals.

Simply, you cannot stop people from sharing your work after they've purchased it. Yours is the same attitude that's killing the music business right now. Instead of worrying about pinching pennies, direct your energies toward making something of merit.

[CoolBee]

Originally Posted by 3afash

lol that sounded kinda harsh...

it's not like that but I'm writing an ebook in my native language and the market that I'm targeting almost never pays for stuff online and it's very common for people to download things off of forums or sharing networks illegally. Of course a few will buy it but I think there's nothing wrong with thinking about a way to not make it so easy for people to get for free. Plus I think sharing is different than posting the ebook on a public forum for everyone to download.

3afash is right about this! I live in Egypt and most people don't pay for downloaded stuff - partly because there is no access to Paypal or similar for those who have only Egyptian bank accounts and - though it is changing now - very few have credit cards and those that do have to ask specially for ones to use online. So in many cases they don't have the ability to purchase legally in any case even if they would want to!

[floslib]

Originally Posted by CoolBee

3afash is right about this! I live in Egypt and most people don't pay for downloaded stuff - partly because there is no access to Paypal or similar for those who have only Egyptian bank accounts and - though it is changing now - very few have credit cards and those that do have to ask specially for ones to use online. So in many cases they don't have the ability to purchase legally in any case even if they would want to!

The group you describe here would not be a good group to market an online product to then. If they, by and large, don't have the ability to purchase products via the internet, then they won't, even if they want to, because they can't. The product wouldn't be legally accessible to a large group of such a population. That being the case, you could expect them to either pirate it, perhaps justifying it by saying there's no way they could buy it anyway, or simply ignoring it since, again, they have no legal way to obtain the product due to credit card limitations online.

[The Rock]

Originally Posted by Starbuck

You can always charge more for a real book than an e-book, so there won't necessarily be a 'net loss'. Include some extra features in the POD-book to make it extra attractive.

Read more about Cory here, if you like

So you're saying that that guy sells his books for $27 to $97? Most ebooks on the Internet are priced between $27 and $97.


You don't target markets online where people don't have access to credit cards. Rampant piracy does not matter, it's the access to the credit card that counts.

[Starbuck]

Originally Posted by The Rock

So you're saying that that guy sells his books for $27 to $97? Most ebooks on the Internet are priced between $27 and $97.


You don't target markets online where people don't have access to credit cards. Rampant piracy does not matter, it's the access to the credit card that counts.

I don't know what he sells them for but apparently he's found a bizz-model that gives him an income from what he sells that is satisfactory to him. And what he sells is partially due to his choice of using a free digital version of his books as probably the most efficient advertising you can not buy for money. :-)

[ssandra]

Instead of trying to protect it, have a page in the beginning where you state that you are happy if they bought the book, and you are sure that they will find value in it. If they received the book from a friend and found value in it they can make a donation to your paypal account.

Have the same (friendly) lines at the end when they finish the ebook, with maybe a bit of explanation on how much work and time it cost you to make it in the first place.

[rocksupreme]

Originally Posted by floslib

The group you describe here would not be a good group to market an online product to then. If they, by and large, don't have the ability to purchase products via the internet, then they won't, even if they want to, because they can't. The product wouldn't be legally accessible to a large group of such a population. That being the case, you could expect them to either pirate it, perhaps justifying it by saying there's no way they could buy it anyway, or simply ignoring it since, again, they have no legal way to obtain the product due to credit card limitations online.

Very true.

I could write the next great literary masterpiece in Swahili, but if I'm expecting to get rich by selling it to people in the third world, I'm going to be disappointed.

Why bother creating a product when there isn't a viable market?

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by rocksupreme

Why bother creating a product when there isn't a viable market?

For the fun of it?

To help people?

Ok, not to get rich, or even make a little bit of money, but there are other reasons why to create a product Although I am sure that if Andrew Michaels did it for other reasons than money, he wouldn't be too concerned about piracy

[Brutha]

it's not like that but I'm writing an ebook in my native language and the market that I'm targeting almost never pays for stuff online and it's very common for people to download things off of forums or sharing networks illegally.

Every ebook can be copied through a series of screenshots.

[rocksupreme]

Originally Posted by ssandra

For the fun of it?

To help people?

Ok, not to get rich, or even make a little bit of money, but there are other reasons why to create a product Although I am sure that if Andrew Michaels did it for other reasons than money, he wouldn't be too concerned about piracy

There are lots of reasons to make various things, but products are pretty much always intended for producing profit. That said, I'm all for gifts and free stuff, especially if it's coffee or beer.

[supertom]

most of the people whom pirate books dont actually read them, if they believe they have receive value from your book they I reckon they will donate money or even buy the book.